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Dynamic Fodder The Highest Yield for Nutritional Feed
After three years of intensive research Rex, Trish and Narelle Forrest of Beechworth have invested in a Dynamic Fodder System. The 40ft shipping container was delivered to the property in mid December and the green grass is now being fed to both cattle and sheep.
With the capacity to produce approx. 700kg of green grass every day using about 600lts of water and some nutrients, the Forrest family, who run a Poll Hereford Stud and fine wool merinos, are looking to the system to provide a source of much needed drought fodder. “Of course the stock still need some dry matter as well” Mr Forrest said “but this system will give us the capacity to get a guaranteed result from seed, which without satisfactory rains over the last few years, we have been challenged to achieve.”
“At this stage we are shooting barley in the system. We place the grain on trays in one end of the unit each day, pushing the revious days production through the container until day seven when the grass is between 150 and 170mm high” Mr Forrest explained. “We feed out the entire contents of the tray, which by the fourth day is held together by a mass of roots”.
“This system is the most technologically advanced that we come across with fully automatic climate control and recycling irrigation systems. As with most new systems, we have had a few teething problems including loss of production during the fi res because we had an extended period without power in extreme heat meaning that the climate control and automatic watering system shut down.” Mr Forrest went on the say “We recognise that the system is fairly labour intensive but the fact that we can guarantee a result for our grain and water in these challenging times will make preparing stud cattle a lot easier. We have another generation of the family at home with us now and we considered where would we be able to buy land with the capacity to produce this amount of green fodder daily for the same capital investment.”
